Citrix stock price goes up on IBM, Cisco takeover rumors

Nasdaq traders bid up Citrix stock this week on takeover rumors that have either IBM or Cisco purchasing the application delivery vendor.

Citrix's stock went from a low of US$30.60 Tuesday to a high of US$33.75. Rumors of Citrix being purchased fueled the higher trading prices, says Jeffrey Gaggin, an enterprise software analyst for Avian Securities. Gaggin cautions that he has no way of knowing whether the rumors hold any truth.

But it would make sense for IBM or Cisco to purchase Citrix because Citrix's acquisition of XenSource last year made it a strong player in the virtualization market, Gaggin says.

"VMware, I think, is being threatened by Citrix," he says. "For IBM and Cisco, yes, I guess it could make some sense."

Microsoft, which is attempting to purchase Yahoo, is not being mentioned in the Citrix takeover rumors.

"Microsoft has too much going on with Yahoo to care about Citrix, and we think Microsoft is well on their way to building a presence in virtualization with the upcoming launch of Hyper-V. ... We also think Microsoft prefers Citrix as a partner," Gaggin wrote in a note to clients, who had been asking why Citrix's stock was trading so heavily.

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